(Kitco News) - Social media platform X is set to move closer to Elon Musk’s goal of becoming an “everything app” in the new year as the world’s richest person recently said that the platform is expected to launch in-app payment services by mid-2024.
Musk made the comments during a discussion with ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood in a Dec. 21 X space, saying he expects payment services to be fully launched by the “middle of next year,” pending the approval of several money transmitter license applications.
While crypto proponents hoped the conversation would lead to a positive discussion about cryptocurrencies and their possible integration, they were left wanting, as the responses from Musk suggested that the possibility of integrating tokens like Bitcoin (BTC) or Dogecoin (DOGE) is remote.
Responding to a question from Wood that was written by Grok – the artificial intelligence (AI) platform backed by Musk and integrated with X – about Bitcoin’s potential impact on the financial system, Musk said, “I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about cryptocurrency. Hardly any at all,” deflating the hopes of crypto advocates.
“I have thought for a long time about money and the nature of money,” Musk said. “What is money? It's really a database for resource allocation.”
He added that fiat currency is “actually fine as a database for resource allocation” provided that it’s rules-based and there’s not much abuse from the government.
Musk said an alternative way to think of the money system is by applying information theory to money problems. “Just think of it like it's an information system,” he said. “You want to minimize noise, minimize latency, minimize packet loss. And so inflation would be adding noise to the system.”
As for his plans to integrate payment services, Musk said he had hoped to launch payments on X sooner but was slowed down by the bureaucratic processes involved.
Things seem to be on track now, Musk said, as he is not aware of any potential “showstoppers” that might result in the rejection of their money transmitter license applications while also admitting that X was “a bit late” in submitting all the required documents.
While X currently has no plans to integrate crypto, Musk’s other companies still support the ecosystem in other ways. Tesla’s third-quarter balance sheet shows that the company held roughly $184 million in digital assets as of the end of September, and customers can purchase merchandise from the Tesla Shop using DOGE.
